Going to Ground
by Alpha Flyer
Summary: Levelling out is part of their routine, part of after-action clean-up. They've done it many times before and are damned professional about it. But as she said, this last one was all about magic and monsters, and nothing they had ever trained for ...
1. Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hawkeye and Widow, after they get into that car. This, to me, is the story that cried out to be written, and of course it has been. But I couldn't resist giving it my own spin, based on how I see these characters: adults; cool professionals capable of handling just about everything their line of work throws at them; but still fundamentally human.

This is my first foray into the Avengers fandom - I normally write elsewhere – constructive comments are most welcome. My characterizations are based on the movie 'verse; I have no direct knowledge of the comics. (What I read from secondary sources made my head spin, so I'm mostly ignoring it in the name of artistic license.)

I own nothing but the words herein, as well as a tremendous respect for Jeremy Renner's abilities as an actor. His eyes told much of what went into this story.

* * *

**GOING TO GROUND**

**By Alpha Flyer**

* * *

I.

_Natasha_

She knows the grin that ghosts across his face when she makes that crack about _Loki's ball gag_ into his ear is genuine. Natasha rarely deploys wit without reason, but knowing this wouldn't have made the comment any less funny to him. She watches his shoulders relax a fraction, even as he observes the shackled god through eyes that remain shielded behind dark glasses.

They nod farewell to Thor – good guy, even if he might wish to consider a haircut - but neither of them bothers to look up for very long as he takes his not-quite brother off into the bright morning sky. Instead, they head for Clint's car. He gets in with his usual loose grace and she follows suit.

"So, where're we going?"

Natasha casts a sideways glance at her partner as he guns the engine, watches him shrug. Over his shoulder, she sees the Captain roar away on his bike; Stark squeals the tires on his pricy red import as he heads off with Banner, doubtless to show off the lab that he's been bragging about to the hapless Doctor.

Clint considers her question.

"I genuinely have no idea. Out of here."

He turns his head and she knows his sharp eyes are searching her face for a reaction to this rather unusual lack of precision, but all she can see in those glasses is her own reflection. Her lips quirk a little smile, and she looks out the side window at the still smoking ruins of the Global Life building. There's a Hulk-sized hole on the fourteenth floor where Banner must have gone Chitauri-smashing; shattered glass dusts the sidewalks, glinting in the morning sun.

It doesn't take her long to decide: _Where _doesn't really matter, as long as it's _not here. _After all, they've done this before, and location has always been secondary.

"Out of here is good enough," she says, and leans back in her seat. "Just don't drive into anything."

Clint snorts his response, and the next twenty minutes or so pass in near-silence as he maneuvers around burnt-out cars, downed Chitauri sleds (some corpses) and smoldering bits of mid-town Manhattan. The Hawk doesn't slow down for any of it, just dips and swoops around the rubble, sometimes right through it, finding openings where even the most ruthless Italian driver would throw in the towel.

For a while Natasha closes her eyes to all of it, content to let him do his thing and ride out the jolts and turns. She anticipates each instinctively, almost as if her body has become part of the car; perhaps it has, in these days of gods and monsters and men encased in iron? The thought evaporates at about the same time as last night's junk food extravaganza starts giving her grief.

"I don't think I'll ever eat shawarma again," she says conversationally, but through pinched lips.

"Beats that plov you made me eat in Tashkent," he replies. "Sat in my gut like a football, for like a _month_."

She snickers as she remembers the steady stream of complaints following the dinner at the State guesthouse, a place with extravagantly gilt ceilings and grim but ineffectual body guards, where bureaucrats, well-meaning foreign diplomats and diamond-encrusted oligarchs mix and mingle over Central Asian cuisine, vodka and third-rate wine. Taking down the corrupt and venal head of the Uzbek security service that night had left no lingering bad taste in either of their mouths, but after-action cleanup involved a gallon of Pepto-Bismol at Frankfurt airport.

"You ever stop whining about that?" she challenges him, smiling when she gets back the expected, "I don't whine. I just call 'em."

They've had this conversation before, more than once; it's part of their canon, like Budapest.

The more they head South-East through Manhattan, the more acrid the air becomes though, and Natasha can't turn off her sense of smell. Clint rolls up the windows but the stench remains; unbidden, the memories start flooding in, and the shawarma wants out. Her heart starts thrumming and pounding and suddenly she's back on that Chitauri scooter, screaming through the burning city canyons to the ack-ack-ack of gunfire. She opens her eyes just as Clint jackknifes the car, a motion that catapults her halfway out of her seat and into the door until the belt slams into her chest and pulls her back down; it's all she can do to hang on to the shawarma.

"Jesus, Barton, what the …?" she hisses out from between clenched teeth, the curse belying her residual gratitude for being pushed off of that scooter inside her head.

For a moment, they stare out the front window, analyzing the sight before them, each in their own way. One of those humpback whale monstrosities that fell out of the sky when Stark nuked the mother ship lies clear across the road, but it's down a fair ways, almost as if it had crashed through the road. How do these things even fly, she wonders now that she has time to look at it, and where would you go in to take one down?

"… fuck," Clint kind of finishes her sentence, then adds his own thoughts, rather more utilitarian than hers. "Guess the Holland tunnel is out."

He makes an illegal U-turn, then peels off the wrong way through a side street to head towards the Williamsburg Bridge. Luckily there's not much traffic and the New York police are busy with other things, and so he gets away with it. Not that he wouldn't have otherwise; the cop car that can catch Agent Barton when he's on the move hasn't been built yet.

"Long Island it is," he shrugs, not expecting a response and not getting one either. Natasha looks back at the black, skeletal mountain until it disappears from view.

….

Once they're over the bridge on clearer roads and the Manhattan smoke has thinned, Natasha rolls down the window a little. She yawns and slinks down in her seat a little bit, puts her feet on the dashboard. Her stomach has stopped heaving and she doesn't really want to think about anything, so she takes some time to study her partner as he drives in silence.

As always, he's totally focused, all coiled stillness except for the hands that spin the wheel and occasionally pump the gears (the archer always drives standard, for that old-fashioned element of control). His hands are strong and calloused in interesting places from his bow, and the lines around his mouth are taut. Still, with his short hair sticking up off his forehead, those shades and that grey hoody he's wearing, she can't help but think that he looks like a delinquent teenager out for a joy ride in Daddy's car.

"You're staring," he says. "Why?"

Even with his eyes forward and on the road, the Hawk misses nothing. Sometimes, she thinks, his peripheral vision is less of an asset than a pain in the ass; so is his penchant for hitting straight at the core of an issue with minimum fuss. The Widow, on the other hand, is all about dancing in the shadows, not showing cards, that sort of thing.

"Just thinking," she obfuscates. "How are they going to clean those things up?"

He probably knows she's being evasive, but they have this unspoken rule: no real arguing while they're still leveling out, except when it's on purpose and for a reason. Bickering is okay, of course – that's part of the deal.

"Invite every scrap dealer in the country for a free-for-all," he offers instead, as if he'd been giving this matter serious thought. Maybe he has.

"They're like vultures. Streets would be picked clean inside a month, at absolutely no cost to the taxpayers. Personally, I'm more worried about the corpses - who knows what kind of bugs these aliens brought with them. Hope the city has enough disinfectant."

That's Clint Barton all over again: Figuring out the angles, laying it out, here's the solution, thwack/boom. According to Selvig he'd told the Director, when they were looking at the tesseract, that _Doors open from both sides -_ just moments before all hell broke loose. All those highly trained scientists working round the clock, and the guy with the bow puts his finger on the one detail they'd all missed.

She finds contemplating her partner oddly comforting, like pulling on one of his old sweatshirts that she pinched on a chilly stakeout and never gave back. Thinking about Clint Barton sure beats other topics.

In the meantime, he's taken the hint and seems ready to continue the banter - sort of.

"I trust you got a good detox? You got awfully close and personal with these … things."

"They were wearing armour," she shrugs. "I mostly just kicked them off the saucer. No need to bite, or touch. But yes, I washed my hands before dinner."

He flashes the expected grin, but then sobers up quickly and unexpectedly. His voice is kind of husky when he speaks.

"By the way, thanks."

"For what?" She's genuinely puzzled, tries to figure where he's coming from.

"For bringing me Loki."

Ah. That. Right_ – Widow on Chitauri saucer, Hawkeye on ledge, Loki in scope. _Clint's mind works in a pretty linear fashion, like the flight of his arrows, even when he's free-associating_. _

"You're welcome. He needed to be brought down, and I knew you could do it."

They both know there's more than that, of course – _you were the one who needed to do it - _but she thinks it'll do for now.

It doesn't. He needs her to know that he knows, right now.

"Felt good, knocking him off. _Really _good. So – thanks."

After a moment's silence, he adds almost like an afterthought, "Especially seeing the tip blow up in his arrow-gant face."

Clint sometimes descends into lowbrow humour, but while Natasha speaks English like a native she's never taken to puns; it's just not her style. Making a comment now would only encourage him, and so she just groans.

But he grins anyway, having accomplished his short-term objective: message delivered, received, defused, erased. Cleaning the ledger is best done one bit at a time.

They're still not on the Long Island Expressway when the need for caffeine strikes him, forcefully. Thanks to an app that Coulson (Coulson…) put on Natasha's Smartphone at some point, they have no problem locating a Starbucks just off the #278. This one has a couple of tables outside and its good to get some fresh air - the first in days; she sips her usual chai latte while he knocks back a double espresso, then goes back for another. Over the years she's stopped wondering how he keeps his hands so still given the amount of caffeine in his veins at any given time; it's a good combination, though, being able to stay awake on a perch for hours and still being ready for that one don't-miss shot.

Since they're not on mission Natasha decides to let her hair down and shakes it out; there's a fair bit of wind though, and she sputters a little when it blows in her face. Clint leans across the small metal table with his free hand to tuck a strand behind her ear. It's a curious gesture, one he's made before, and she's never quite sure what he means by it. But there's something nice about it, too, and so she doesn't stop him - even though whatever effect he may think he's achieving is beyond futile at the moment.

When they head back to the car, Clint takes a sideways look at her, his eyes lingering on her face for the briefest of moments before he gets back in and turns on the ignition.

…..

The drive is longer than Natasha expected but Clint is adamant: if they are doing this Long Island thing they're doing it properly, and that means the Hamptons, all the way at the far end.

"Isn't that where Stark has one of his Playboy mansions?" Natasha frowns, remembering something from her days as 'Nathalie-Rushman-From-Legal'. She's almost gotten used to Tony since then, but right now she needs to level out and that means she wants only her partner, no thousand-words-a-minute billionaires and their live-in PAs, however congenial.

"Don't worry about him. He's got a tower to fix and a suit to polish," is Clint's laconic answer.

The first Hampton they come to – South? – they pass a few nice places that could be B&Bs, but Clint rejects them all.

"Why?" Natasha is a bit non-plussed; he's slept in anything from a cave to the top of a hundred-foot pine tree, so why get picky now? He shrugs.

"No ocean view?" he offers, and she understands immediately; it isn't the same as being up high, but as open space goes, the sea will do for him.

The house they find almost by accident oozes gentility – pale yellow siding, white gingerbread under the many-gabled roof, a meticulously landscaped garden. Beyond it, through the grass-topped dunes, you can see the sea and there's a sign, a discrete but comforting nod to capitalism, that says _Vacancy. _They had Natasha at "spa facilities."

"Meets requirements," he shrugs diffidently.

Neither of them cares much what it will cost; after they helped save Manhattan (and possibly the planet) from an alien invasion, surely Fury will be good for this. A couple of nights in a B&B in New York state is bound to be cheaper than a month of PTSD counseling, which is what someone like Hill will need after major shit has gone down, not to mention more efficient. And even if S.H.I.E.L.D. decides to be cheap about it, Clint usually lives on what he gets for expenses on mission; he hasn't tapped into his paycheck for months.

"Hey, we just saved the world, Tasha. Let's live a little."

They introduce themselves to the middle-aged woman who runs the place as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, an inside joke that Natasha didn't initially get until Clint made her watch the movie during a lull between missions. (She remembers snorting popcorn up her nose at some of the stuff the producers considered normal in their line of work.)

Natasha drops the old-fashioned metal key on the credenza and looks around the bright, sunlit room. White walls, blue upholstered rattan furniture, blue-and-white curtains fluttering in the breeze – fresh seaside décor at its quaintest, not exactly her style but also not the place you'd come looking for people who ply their trade dressed in black leather. She gives Clint credit for taking it all in stride.

"It'll do," she decides, even as she takes note of the fact that there's only one bed. They could of course get separate quarters, but that would just look stupid, given how they'd arrived in the same car; besides it's much easier to have someone's back when it's in the same room.

He must have seen her eyes pause on the deficient infrastructure, because he gets to the point right away.

"I'll take the couch."

She gives him The Look - _puh-lease_. Like they haven't shared a bed before - even body heat, like that time in Bishkek, when a sudden storm swept down from the Alatau mountains and a city with spotty access to electrical power found itself covered overnight in a foot of unexpected snow. And before that, there was Astana, of course...

They have proven to themselves and each other, time and again, that they are partners, adults, and professionals.

And – something she'll only admit to herself, and only after a couple of shots of vodka – sometimes it can be nice to have a solid presence close by when you wake up in the middle of the night, staring at … nothing inside your head.

"No, seriously, it'll be fine, Tasha. I'll be fine."

And then she sees something flickering in his eyes, something that hasn't been there before, and she finds herself nodding.

"Sure. The couch is yours."

She'll have a couple of days to figure out what it is that he's hiding.

…..

The spend what remains of the afternoon walking along the ocean. They're mostly silent, just breathing in the salty air, but then he mutters something about sand and takes off his shoes, which is actually not a bad idea so she follows suit. Neither of them tries the water – hell, it's only May, this is the Atlantic and they're not stupid – but Clint picks up a few flat rocks and skips them. As with anything involving projectiles he's rather good at it and the water is calm; Natasha loses count at twenty-seven, when the bounces get too close together to see. Funny thing is, she's counting in Russian; Clint pretends not to notice but it's clear that he does.

There are a few dinner options – go into the little town, where there are a couple of restaurants marked on that app of Coulson's, or stay in the guesthouse. As they learned during check-in, the place is more than a B&B, they serve dinner as well; boxed lunches, too, if you ask. As far as Clint is concerned, not having to operate an automated conveyance for a day or so is a Good Thing and besides, the menu for the night includes _steak frites_, which he figured out during that casino job in Nice is just a pretentious way of saying 'steak and potatoes'. So, all in all, Clint Barton is good with staying put.

Natasha rolls her eyes at her partner's lack of culinary imagination.

"It's amazing you're still alive, Barton, you can be _so_ predictable sometimes."

But it's settled, they'll stay at the Inn; she doesn't much feel like going out either. The whole idea of leveling out is to go somewhere quiet and take a deep breath, isn't it?

Dinner, as it turns out, is actually pretty good, even if Clint makes a face at the mesclun salad they get as an unasked-for starter – _but it comes with the meal, Mr. Smith!_ … He wants his steak and the sooner the better; he's gone through all the rolls already.

"Eat your vegetables, Clint Barton. You'd be a lot taller if you'd done that as a kid," Natasha scolds him as he pushes the leaves around on his plate with an air of utter distaste. But the truth of his trainwreck of a childhood doesn't really go with the good line, and so to pre-empt him from zeroing in on the obvious counter-argument she adds, "I bet Thor doesn't eat just red meat."

He readily seizes on the diversion.

"Thor is a god," he says, "I'm not. He _quaffs mead_, too. I don't do that, either. And I _definitely _don't nibble on leaves. Codename's Hawkeye, not Cottontail."

He spears the cherry tomato she'd been saving for last off her plate, pops it into his mouth and pulls a face at her.

"There. Happy?"

All in all, they do the normal couple thing quite well – they do have prior experience – although Clint occasionally stares at the genteel paintings of English racehorses on the dining room wall as if he was looking at the towers of Asgard. (Maybe they should have gone back to the Zen Garden in Lijiang? Although Fury almost flipped at just how far they'd gone off the grid that time.)

There's a buzz in the room throughout dinner, and the snatches of conversation they pick up from the other patrons are full of words like "invasion," "Manhattan," and "those so-called Avengers." It's a good thing that Clint and Natasha's world is as alien to the people here as theirs is to them; certainly none of the Merlot or Riesling-sipping folks here would _expect_ to see the Black Widow a few feet away, carefully picking the olives off her plate and passing them to "that sniper who uses a bow, of all things." And so they don't, and that, as far as Natasha Romanoff is concerned, is a Very Good Thing.

The proprietress wafts in during dessert to make sure everyone is happy and feels that touch of personal attention. Ever the animatrix, she breathlessly points out that since _our two_ _young newcomers here_ have _just_ arrived from New York, _maybe_ they could give everyone an idea of what it's _like_ there right now, and did they _see_ any of the _monsters_?

Natasha shakes her head, claiming an Upper West Side provenance ("_folks living North of 39__th__ were spared the worst_" – true) but provides the curious with a short but dramatic exposé of smoking ruins, wrecked retail space and traffic snarl-ups, as seen on their way out of town. Sometimes it's just best to hide in plain sight.

"I hear the Holland Tunnel is out," Clint tosses in manfully. "Some alien space ship crashed right through the roof. Will take _months_ to fix that."

This sensational piece of information launches a lively discussion of commuting woes, neglected infrastructure, and what are we paying property taxes for anyway? They manage to extricate themselves from it when Clint's second espresso arrives.

"Nice, Barton," Natasha concedes, and stifles a yawn. Actually, she tries to stifle it, but fails miserably. It really has been a shit few days, even though she wasn't in Colcata long enough to develop a proper jet lag. But before that it was Mother Russia and that was what, EDT plus seven hours? And oh yes, there was all the fighting, and those aliens, and … she's really suddenly … just … so …

Clint is really the only one who's ever been permitted to see her crash; it's one of the reasons they always go to ground in private. Reputation to uphold, and all that. Although Fury probably knows that she can't go on forever. He keeps tabs on his assets, but this way everyone can pretend. Coulson knew. _Coulson_ …

But the fact that she knows what's coming doesn't mean she won't fight it. She sits up straight in her chair.

"You. Bed."

"Not tired. I'm okay."

"Now, Tash."

She glares at him, but he just cuts her off.

"You made _me _eat a tomato. I can make _you_ go to bed."

It's actually quite funny, she thinks as he half drags her up the stairs, how few people know that Mr. Brooding Intensity Himself can actually be quite funny.

Wait. That was kind of repetitive. Shit. Her brain is looping. This isn't good.

What if someone …

Hell with it. Her partner is here. He has her back.

She mutters a token protest as Clint lifts the utility black dress over her head, puts her on the bed and pulls off her slingbacks. She blacks out almost as soon as he covers her with the duvet, the remnants of her conscious brain thinking that he left on her bra and isn't it a good thing that she hardly ever dreams.

But hardly ever isn't now, and now is …

… _the icy blue vacuum that is the eyes of the God of Lies, but his face turns into something else … someone else … and she hears herself scream and she turns to run, racing down an endless corridor and then there's a monster … and more monsters … and it's not really a dream, is it?_

She feels the hand on her shoulders and hears, "Shh, Tasha, 's alright. Nightmare. Go back to sleep."

_The Black Widow is having a bad dream? Dreams are for children … _

But then there's that arm around her waist, warmth on her back, another heartbeat, slower than hers, and she stops fighting. Someone's mouth, his mouth, his lips in her hair, breathing softly, breathing calm into her, and did he ever even sleep himself?

In the morning, she wakes up to sunlight on her pillow, a breeze from the ocean through the open window, and an empty room.


	2. Chapter 2

II.

_Clint_

She'll know where to find him, when or if she wants to. It's not like he's hiding.

The trees are too close to the house so she'd know they're not an option; she also knows he wanted the ocean for a reason. Last point, he's brought the duffle that holds his bow and quiver, which will tell her that he'll be within shooting range just in case. (After all, he left her while she was asleep.)

What she won't know is _when_ he left, or why, and that's just fine with him. He's downloaded enough shit on her already; she doesn't need any more. Besides … yeah.

He has rearranged (okay, kicked aside) the cushy chairs that were put on the dock to allow hotel patrons a nice close-up view of the sea while they sip their martinis. The new layout makes for a quick exit route, but also frees up space for the _t'ai chi_.

There are better, dirtier, and more effective martial arts of course, but he's found that this one goes well with the time he needs to spend in his own head to keep his focus, plus he gets to work every muscle in his body without alarming potential witnesses. He's taught it to her, and at headquarters they often practice together before sparring. It's apparently quite a sight: her liquid beauty, his military precision, perfectly in synch, twin shadows moving in silence, and they frequently draw an audience ("assassin junkies," Coulson calls … called them).

So anyway, here he is on the dock now, carving sharply defined movements into the cool morning air. The deadly dance will ground him, as will the open space. He hopes.

Of course he's aware of her presence as soon as she comes across the lawn; after all he's the Hawk, eyes in the back of his head, and that ochre leather jacket of hers sure picks up the sun. He finishes his moves, including the required period of drawn-in stillness at the end, before turning around - almost in time to miss her frown.

"You left," she says and it's almost an accusation, even dressed up as an explanation for why she's here. Of course she's pissed off; she should have woken when he opened the door to leave. Someone could have come in instead …

"You were asleep. I wasn't." It's not exactly an answer, is it, but it'll do.

She ignores him and ploughs on.

"I noticed you took the bow, so I thought you might need help."

Ah. She's thinking of the time they'd found those half-starved girls chained to a pipe, in the basement of a cult leader they'd taken out in Montana. After that, he'd shot arrow after arrow into a dead tree, because the one he'd put into the wannabe prophet's eye just hadn't been enough. Natasha had watched, then gone and printed out some photos off the internet and pinned them to the tree. Later, she'd pulled out all the arrows and stuck them back in his quiver. _Reduce, reuse, recycle._ No point wasting well-fletched ammo on scum.

"Nah, I'm good," he replies, giving her a small smile that makes her stare at his glasses as if she's trying to see whether it's for real.

"Just normal paranoia. Occupational hazard. You know."

She picks up his hoody from one of the chairs and tosses it to him. He accepts it with a nod of appreciation; it is a bit chilly when you're not actually moving, and besides it'll hide the fact that he's still wearing the red t-shirt he wore yesterday.

"Sleep okay?" he asks now, all business and ready to throw a diversion.

"You know I did," she answers. "At least, I did … after I didn't."

She remembers, then; she usually does. It's not the first time he's quieted a silent scream or filled the void that sometimes finds her after action - things the Red Room didn't take away or things that it put there, not that it matters which. She never talks about it, never thanks him; that would just complicate things for her, he knows. Chalk up another debt to those ledgers she keeps in her head. The way she thinks can be pretty black and white. (And red.)

So he simply nods his acknowledgement, glad that she doesn't know what it cost him this time to help her sleep. She won't find out, either, if he can help it. This one's red in _his_ ledger.

"You … left," she says again, and this time the accusation isn't so veiled. There's something else, something he can't identify. "When? And did _you_ sleep? At all?"

She stares at his sunglasses again while he shrugs and says nothing, wanting neither the lecture nor the lie.

"So, I guess you didn't. That's not good, Clint. You need to sleep. You didn't the night before, either. You can't keep this up …"

It looks like he's going to get the lecture anyway, so he decides to go on the attack. He knows how she works.

"Yeah?" he asks, taunting her now. "How d'you know I didn't sleep the night before?"

"You were in the S.H.I.E.L.D. medlab, having your head examined under neon lights. No one sleeps through an MRI."

He _could_ take this line in a particular direction, of course – comparing her and Loki's respective approaches to_ cognitive recalibration _and the impact on his cranium, inside and that is the last place he wants to go, so he takes the cheap out.

"You keeping tabs on me now? Should I be flattered or concerned?"

"Whatever you do, Barton, do _not_ flatter yourself."

He flashes a grin at her; he's Barton again - they're back in the groove.

"I could use a coffee."

"You can always use a coffee. Not the point."

"Then let's go get one anyway. Might as well, it's seven thirty."

Natasha sighs, but she'll know that she won't get anything else from him for now, and one of the rules they have is no prodding, except _in extremis_.

B&B – breakfast and bickering. He puts away four cups of black coffee ("you planning on internalizing your very own Starbucks franchise?") and three helpings of bacon ("enough to cause a blip in pork belly futures"), but he balks at the frittata.

"They're_ potatoes_, Clint!"

"Yeah? Whatever happened to just hash browns? I don't do _precious_ for breakfast."

Natasha nibbles on yoghurt and fruit through all this, plucks at a croissant, sips orange juice and tea, and watches him through veiled eyes. He knows that look, almost like he's the subject of one of her Special Interrogations. Hell, he probably is. He did for her last night; she'll be wanting to help level him out today. Keeping that ledger of hers clean.

Once the food is gone and he's out of conversational arrows, Clint begins to feel twitchy. He knows it's probably a combination of sleep deprivation and an epic adrenaline hangover and that he should really go to bed, but instead he suggests they go for a run. Natasha, in turn, informs _Agent Barton_ that given the amount of food he just inhaled he might as well just throw it all up now and get it over with; besides he's probably had a concussion, not to mention he almost broke his back landing on his quiver. Conclusion: maybe a run isn't the best thing right now.

He rolls his eyes and grumbles something about spiders making lousy mother hens and why the hell doesn't she go diagnose herself for a change, he's seen the contusions when he stuck her in bed. Natasha doesn't even dignify that with an answer.

All in all they're as close to arguing as they've come on this trip, and because he doesn't have the stomach for it he heads to the hotel's bright and charming sunroom, carrying his duffle and the front section of yesterday's New York Times. It's a thing they sometimes do, track media interpretations of their exploits on the internet or in the papers; she follows to see if she can coax a real smile out of him.

Today the game doesn't seem particularly funny though, especially as there are dozens of photographs. All those people with iPhones and blackberries – Clint wonders out loud whatever happened to civilians running for cover when the shit hits the fan, instead of trying to find immortality on youtube? Luckily the photos of the Avengers are mostly limited to Stark, Banner – in full Hulk mode - and the Captain, although there's a grainy zoom shot of the 'man called Hawkeye' (you can't really see his face, so that's okay) on that ledge, taking aim at something scaly.

What there is, too, is a picture of Loki, not inaccurately described as 'one of the apparent commanders of the invasion force'. It's a fairly high-resolution photo and the Asgardian is looking almost straight at the camera, his eyes shooting daggers of blue ice right off the page.

Clint crumples up the paper as if it contains a live cockroach and tosses it aside.

"Fuck it, Nat, I have to get out."

Natasha suggests a sauna and a massage, but the last thing Clint needs right now is to lie down while someone takes control of his body. He's still in his sweats from the _t'ai chi_ and so he just heads out the door without waiting to see whether she'll follow.

She does, but only with her eyes.

…..

Despite his love of open spaces Clint is actually not overly fond of running; he much prefers the gym, the sparring room, or the range. But his body is a tool, like his bow and quiver, one that needs to be kept sharp and strong. And since that includes CV training he may as well kill two birds with one stone - get away _and_ get a tune-up at the same time.

Going to their room is not an option; he might fall asleep, and who knows what _that_ will bring. He sets out along the beach, his back to Manhattan.

For a while, his world narrows to the sound of his breath and the pounding of his feet in the hardened sand by the water's edge. It's almost enough to silence the voice echoing in his head. Almost.

Half an hour into his run, he realizes that he's left his bow in the sunroom. He spits out a curse, but he keeps going. An hour in, his head is pounding and maybe Natasha was right. Fuck. Maybe he should take a break? Sitting down doesn't seem the right thing to do for reasons already established, and so he decides to do another round of t'ai chi – the Forty-Two Competition set this time. In slo-mo, so as not to provoke his head.

That's how she finds him, spots him from a mile away slicing patterns into the air, a solitary figure between the sea and the sand.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?" she asks when she gets there, hands on hips, a little winded herself. She'd been running far above her usual pace to catch up with him.

"Because at this rate, you'll succeed by tomorrow."

But she doesn't really seem to expect an answer and so he doesn't give one, just keeps going. _Focus_.

"I found your bow and took it to the room," she tries again. "In case you care."

He cares. Of course he cares. His bow is … his bow. Although right now all he wants to do is to complete his patterns. She gets that, and sits down on the slope of one of the dunes in a patch of grass.

Eventually he runs out of excuses – forty-two moves only last that long, even if you go at the pace of the pensioners in Temple of Heaven Park – and he goes to join her. Reluctantly, because he both knows and fears what's coming. She can keep it up all day; eventually she'll crack him open like a thin-shelled egg, his extensive S.H.I.E.L.D. counter-interrogation training notwithstanding. (She teaches the course.)

But they're leveling out, this is part of the drill, and he may as well get it over with. He sits down beside her as is their normal habit, arms almost touching.

"You hate running," is her opening gambit.

_Not always. _

"No I don't. I just don't love it."

"That's bullshit and you know it, Clint."

_Sometimes running is all there is. _He goes on the attack.

"Look, are you trying to pick a fight? Because I'm not in the mood."

"I'm not trying to fight with you. I want to know why you ran away."

_Ran away when – last night? This morning_? If he asks, she has her answer about last night. He doesn't.

"I didn't run away. I went running. Difference."

"Clint."

And there it is, the first crack. The way she says his name pounds at his defences; he's lasted less than a minute. Less than she did last night.

"Hell, Tasha. I guess I thought … maybe if I run fast enough, I could outrun … it … everything. _Him._"

"You think he's still in your head? But Thor said …"

"Fuck Thor," he snarls. "What the hell does _he_ know what's in my head or not, and how to get it out?"

"Tell me, then," she says, and her voice is soft. She's very good.

"Phil," he says, his voice even as he stares at the sea. Maybe that will be enough; maybe if he says this, this one thing, she will leave him be and he can work the rest of the shit out for himself over the next couple of days.

"Phil?" She frowns. "Clint, we all know that Loki was the one who killed Phil, and how. You weren't even there."

"Yeah? Well, newsflash. If it hadn't been for me, Loki wouldn't have been on that goddamn barge to begin with. I might as well have punched that spear through Coulson's chest myself."

She grips his arm now, a slight look of alarm crossing her face when he recoils visibly from her touch. She holds on though, her nails digging into his skin a little to make him hear, make him _feel_.

"I told you, Clint, don't do that to yourself. You said it, you know it: Loki emptied you out, poured himself inside your head. You did _not_ kill Phil, that was …"

He yanks his arm away from her, not caring about the red marks her nails leave, and faces her fully. He's angry now, his jaw clenches and his eyes spray cold green fire.

"Maybe that's how it works for you, Tasha. Sticking stuff into convenient little boxes in your head, wiping slates clean. If that kind of system is what they gave you when they fucked you over in that Red Room of yours, then good on ya. My head doesn't work that way though, and Phil deserves better than me saying yeah, I only killed him by proxy and then I helped save Manhattan, so it's okay."

Her face has gone still at his mention of the place of her own unmaking, and he knows he's being unfair. But she's a professional and recognizes a distracting flare when one is thrown in her face – he can see it in her eyes. He also knows that if she thinks his hurling shit at her is going to make him better, she'll make it happen, somehow. She's allowed people to do a lot worse to her, in order to get what she wants from her marks.

Sure enough, she will not let him off the hook. His hand makes a fist in the sand as she speaks, because he just knows she'll break him. He's just not that good, and she is.

"This isn't about Coulson, and it isn't about the Red Room, either. It's about _you_, Clint, and what's inside _your _head. And you and I both know that you didn't _want_ any of the things Loki made you do. Focus on that, and …"

"No."

_There. _He's said it.

"What do you mean, no?"

His voice is tired now, all the anger drained away as quickly as it had flared up. Maybe he really should have tried to sleep last night, taken the couch instead of spending a cold, damp night in a chair on the dock …

"I mean _no_, Tasha. Truth is, Loki didn't just make me do what _he_ wanted. He made _me_ want to do it. He made me _want_ …"

How do you say to your … partner, _I wanted to kill you_?

That each arrow he'd pointed at her during their fight on that catwalk, each thrust with the knife, each kick, had been foreplay – not only of death, but worse things?

That he still hears that voice echo inside his head, dripping its need, howling its desire, shrieking its pleasure each time his fist or foot or elbow connected with her body – how it cackled its contempt each time her fist or foot or elbow smashed into his?

That the voice may have simply fuelled a fire that must have been there to begin with, for it to blaze so brightly?

That last night, when he held her down from her own nightmare, her breath coming in gulps, her heart racing against his chest, it was all he could do to stay there for her for as long as it took - before bolting from the room in the face of remembered horrors and desires?

Clint doesn't (can't, _won't_) say any of these things, though. He just shakes his head, again and again, raises his hands to ward off the voice and squeezes his eyes shut, lest they be rimed again with Loki's hatred.

But then he feels a warm hand on his shoulder, a thumb stroking his neck. That's _his _thing, not talking, holding her until she calms – she's never done it for him. Never had to, truth be told, he's always been in pretty much in control. Feeling her hand there, now, hearing the low hum of her voice as she whispers his name, throws the cracks wide open.

On a sunny day you can often see birds of prey wheeling in the sky, riding the thermals. If you watch long enough, one may drop like a stone. It is a beautiful sight – that fierceness, that control, the deadly grace of the hunt.

The Hawk never sees the ground coming until it strikes. Elbows on his knees and hands pressed against his face, his body suddenly convulses with one, two, three wracking sobs.

There is a long silence on the beach, the only sound the slight murmur of the sea until he finds his voice, his face still buried in his hands, thumbs digging into those treacherous eyes.

"He made me listen while you talked to him. Like a wire, into his head. I heard and saw everything, or at least what he wanted me to. He told you what he would make me do to you, and I _wanted _it. _All _of it, everything he said, I_ needed_ it. And when he said that on waking I'd be screaming until he split my skull - I wanted _that_, too. Well, guess what, Tasha. He got his wish."

Clint turns to his partner, his eyes dry but empty – so empty. His voice is a whisper.

"I'm still screaming."

And then there really isn't anything more to do, or say, but at least now she knows the worst. He can feel her hand on his shoulder again, and this time he lets it be.

Maybe she knows now why he ran from the room; he's said his bit, he's not going to spell it out for her. If she still wants to sit beside him after that, well, he's not going to argue. She'll know how to handle herself when the time comes, now that she knows he's a ticking bomb.

He finds his concentration wavering – it has been a long time, and two wars, since he last slept – and gets up off the beach in a fluid motion. Maybe she could put him in restraints again so he can get some sleep.

"Coming?" he asks without looking at her.


	3. Chapter 3

III.

_The Hawk and the Widow_

They head back to the inn side by side - walking, not running, Natasha having declared that an hour's run after the shit they've just been through is really all she needs. Surely S.H.I.E.L.D. training protocols for field assets have been suspended for a few days?

Clint knows she is just trying to protect him from himself, making sure he doesn't accidentally kill himself while suffering from sleep deprivation (he doesn't recall sleeping _at all_ since New Mexico) and a concussion (the med tests _did_ come out positive, thank God for patient confidentiality). All cogent reasons, so he doesn't protest, besides he really does kind of loathe running.

Especially now that he doesn't have anything left to run away from.

There's one more thing he needs to say, though, before he can lapse into silence.

"Just so we're clear, Natasha, I tried to kill you."

"Don't flatter yourself, Clint. I came a lot closer than you did."

He glances at her sideways. As things turned out she's not wrong, but he fails to see the humorous angle she's obviously trying to find.

"You don't seem to get it. I _wanted_ to kill you."

She looks at him intently, but her voice is curiously flat when she makes her response – since he seems to expect one.

"And if you hadn't said my name after you hit your head on that railing, I probably would have had to kill _you_."

_Good_. He's got her where he needs her.

"About that …"

"What? You wish I had? Clint …"

He bites back the answer that came to him last night, in that chair on the dock, and shakes his head instead.

"No. But you hesitated. You _never_ hesitate."

He can hear the soft intake of breath that tells him he's right.

"I … wanted to see what happens, whether that hit …"

She's bullshitting him, he knows, but he lets it go. He's made his point.

"Next time a guy who's been taken over by a crazy god tries to kill you, break his neck. Especially if the guy's just killed a good number of your colleagues. Is that clear, Agent Romanoff?"

"Like next time you get ordered by the Boss to put an arrow into a highly efficient Russian serial killer, you let fly – right, Agent Barton?"

Of course. He should have known. _I owe him a debt …_

"This was different, and you know it," he insists. "And you killing me would have been self-defense."

"Oh, I get it alright. Me killing you would have been perfectly okay, for both of us. No hard feelings, is that it?"

She stops in her tracks, stares at him, sudden understanding dawning in her eyes.

"You really think he's still in your head, don't you? Jesus, Barton. Are you trying to hand me a blank cheque here? A green light and instant absolution, in case you make a wrong move while you're asleep?"

Since that's exactly what he was trying to tell her he doesn't reply, just clenches his jaw a little. For some reason he can't fathom this pisses her off.

"You know, just for the record, I don't think you _would_ have killed me. You got a couple of arrows off on that catwalk. None of them hit me."

"You are the liveliest moving target on the planet, Nat, and I was avoiding your feet, trying not to have my knee caps shattered. Of _course_ I missed."

She snorts her derision. The day before, that same day, she'd seen him hit Chitauri on crazy-flying sleds right in the eye, while standing on a foot-wide ledge on top of a Manhattan skyscraper dodging things far worse than her feet.

"Please,_ Hawkeye_. Think. You missed Fury, too, when you shot him in New Mexico."

"I didn't miss him. I got him in the shoul …"

_Oh._

She really is good at this. Why_ did_ he fail to kill Fury?

"I think the only person on this beach who requires absolution is you, Clint. But you need to give it to yourself. I'll be here when you're ready to do that."

He doesn't really have an answer to that, at least not yet. Maybe at some point. But in the meantime he's said his piece, feels a bit better for it, and if she still wants to walk beside him, well, Natasha Romanoff has made it clear that she can handle herself.

…..

It's high noon when they get back to the Inn; someone has already pushed the chairs on the dock back into the norm of upscale resort living. A middle-aged couple that looks like cut-outs from a Ralph Lauren ad - he's the one who'd gone on about Manhattan property taxes last night - are taking in the sun, legs wrapped in crested woolen throws against a by now largely imagined chill. The heavily made-up woman turns at the sound of their footsteps. She wreathes her face in a welcoming smile, obviously eager for a conversation that doesn't involve her husband.

"Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Isn't it a _beautiful_ day?"

Natasha pretends she doesn't hear and puts her arm around Clint, as if to whisper sweet nothings in his ear; what she actually says is, "Keep walking, Barton, or you'll get sucked into a fucking vortex."

He leans into her with practiced ease and pulls a suggestive smirk from somewhere in his reserves.

"Oh, sweetheart. Not in public, surely," he purrs just loud enough for their audience's benefit, hoping she hasn't felt his shoulders stiffen at her touch. "Let's go to our room for _that_."

They keep walking as the woman turns to her husband and somewhat accusingly informs him what a _handsome_ young couple they are, those Smiths, so _obviously_ in love, and when was the last time _he_ talked to her like that?

Natasha tightens her grip on Clint's shoulder, having ignored both his telltale twitch and the unexpected heat that his breathy comment left on her neck. With a saucy wink to Mrs. Upper East Side, she steers him towards their room with brusque efficiency.

…..

Once behind closed doors, Clint insists on taking a shower before he does anything else, including collapsing with exhaustion. Natasha briefly considers arguing with him – he really does look like shit once he takes those glasses off, like he needs to sleep around the clock - but it's equally hard to miss the fact that he's done three workouts in a t-shirt he's worn since yesterday. And so she tells herself, if he wants a few minutes to indulge his usual fastidious hygiene habits, that's probably a good sign.

More to the point, though, his near-breakdown on the beach, not to mention his direct invitation to her to essentially feel free to kill him have slightly unnerved her. He seems like a live sparking wire right now, dangerous to the touch, if to himself more than to her. (Although she seems to set him off somehow.)

Maybe … maybe they could use a bit of distance for a bit. She watches the door to the bathroom click shut behind her partner with something perilously close to relief.

Out of habit she listens whether he locks the door or not. He always does, out of some misplaced sense of propriety; of course, they both know the lock would only slow her down by seconds if she needed/wanted to get in. In any event, he's gone for the moment and she can breathe, take stock.

Natasha curls up on the unslept-on couch, allowing her mind to flick briefly to the events of the last couple of days – to last night, those too-real nightmares. Magic and gods and monsters …

_Your world hangs in the balance, and you bargain for one man?_

That voice.

_And when he screams, I will split his skull. _

_You mewling quim …_

Just as quickly, her thoughts skitter away and fasten back on her partner, rather than her own memories. How had he been able to hold her - calm her - as he had, through the still-screaming reality of his own nightmare, in which he recoils from her every touch? It doesn't strike her as at all ironic that only seconds after welcoming a break from Clint' presence and some time alone with her own thoughts, she is now spending the duration of his absence thinking about him.

Because she might be forced to admit that it sure beats the alternative.

….

One good thing with staying in five-star accommodations, rather than in places like that roach motel S.H.I.E.L.D. had stuck Clint with in New Mexico, is the walk-in showers. This one has a rain head in the ceiling and two separate shower bars along the side with two heads each, so water is pretty much coming at him from everywhere at once. It feels pretty good, even in his current messed up state, and it has an unexpected side effect: He revives.

He knows it probably won't last long, but he's also conscious that there's still work to be done. He's spent the morning pretty well spilling his guts on that beach, but Natasha …

Leveling out is not a one-way street, shouldn't be. Those nightmares last night were just the beginning, he's convinced of that. Tip of the iceberg. Something she's not telling, and the closest he's come to getting a genuine reaction from her was when he told her she should kill him if Loki came back.

Round and round, looped in his head, he replays her words, from Loki's cell to the recovery room.

_Love is for children. I owe him a debt. … It's really quite simple ..._

_I've been compromised. I've got red in my ledger ... _

Something doesn't add up, something she's hiding, and Clint is pretty sure that holding Natasha through another night of shitty dreams (if he can bring himself to do it, if she'll let him, if she doesn't cuff him to the couch like she should) won't square the equation, for him or for her.

Somewhere, there's a variable he doesn't have. Yet.

Again:

_Love is for children …_

…..

For a while Natasha thinks he might have fallen asleep in the shower, and thinks about cracking the door open to check up on him. But then there are other noises, soap being put in a dish or something, the sound of hair being scrubbed, and it's clear he is awake.

And suddenly the seemingly endless sound of running water stops.

Clint steps out of the shower in a fresh t-shirt and a pair of those grey sweat shorts that he likes to sleep in; at least he seems prepared to go through the motions. His hair is still wet and, as usual, sticks up in several directions. Times like this, Clint Barton does not look much like one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s most lethal assets.

What he does look like though, is a great deal more awake than he was just a few minutes ago. He even seems to have his usual intensity back, God knows how. The shower must have poured something into him, some new thought, some resolve, something he needs to deal with immediately – and that concerns her.

Because, she has a sneaking feeling, it _does_ concern her. She had hoped for another day …

He sits down on the couch beside her, staring at his fingernails for a second as if to check whether the shower has done a good enough job on any residual alien grime and concrete dust. Apparently it has, because now he looks up and straight at her, with that determined set to his jaw that he always gets when he's scoped his target and is pulling his bowstring impossibly taut.

He takes her measure carefully before speaking, his voice low, almost gentle.

"So tell me, Tasha."

She is genuinely puzzled. She can't read him at all now, beyond the fact that he evidently has her in his sights.

"Tell you what?"

"Loki. What _did_ he do to you? I know what he did to me. What'd he do to you?"

"_Loki?_"

Her voice reflexively takes on that calm, neutral tone it assumes when she is being questioned. He knows it, too, she can tell in his eyes. They don't waver. He's a sniper; he'll wait all day. Longer, if that's what it takes.

"I told you in the recovery room."

"No, you didn't."

His own tone is calm, patient, but determined. _What is he after?_

"You started to tell me you were _compromised. _ That's pretty strong stuff in our profession, and you know it. But then you talked about wiping out ledgers again instead. You'd said the same thing to … _him_, too, before. That you had 'red in your ledger'. Time to cut the crap, Natasha, and skip the accounting metaphors. Tell me."

Her eyes shift to the wall and she crosses her arms before her chest as she hears the echo of Loki's voice, asking the same thing, and wonders whether his choice of words was an accident. He said Loki made him listen. Is this the god speaking?

_Tell me._

"There's nothing to tell. You know what I said to him, so why do you ask?"

"_Love is for children_," Clint says. "Yeah, I heard that. I get that. I may even agree with it. Irrelevant. What about the bit about the debt?"

She hesitates a fraction, studies his face, looking for cues in his face. _Tell me. _What does he want to hear?

"The truth, Tasha."

He can read her, too, apparently.

"You said it to him. And then you said it to me."

"You heard what I told Loki."

"Yeah, that was ancient shit, me bringing you in instead of putting an arrow through your throat. Paid and repaid. Quito, Bratislava, São Tomé. Not a debt on my account, nothing you need to wipe out, and you know it. _He_ knew it, too. Don't forget, he could read _me_, even if he couldn't read _you_."

Her eyes twitch a little; his own narrow, as he tries to figure whether that was a calculated move on her part, a pseudo-tell to convince him of her veracity. (Body Language 101, look at your mark's eyes. She teaches the course …)

"Do you really think I'd tell the fucking God of Lies anything remotely like the truth? That was an _interrogation_, Clint. I needed stuff from him, I gave him what he wanted in return."

Clint's bullshit meter dips into the red.

"I _know_ what you told him wasn't the truth, Natasha. Didn't I just say that? But you see, the thing is – you told _me_ the same thing. After I woke up, after you cut me loose. And I don't think you'd lie to me. I just don't know what it means."

His voice grows low, almost a whisper.

"What's the thing – call it a debt, whatever, I don't care - that got you so spooked that you would say you were compromised? And don't tell me it was Banner. Anyone with any brains would be scared of _that._ Besides, he apologized, and you forgave him. That ledger is clean. So, we're back to Loki, me and the red in your ledger."

She stares at him in bland defiance; she knows she has to give him something. He won't quit otherwise.

"Stark said, 'Loki hit us all where we live,' or something like that."

He thinks about that for the moment. Credit where credit is due.

"Stark's a pretty smart guy. Loki picked you from my brain for his _very_ special attention. So, yeah."

"And based on what you've been telling me, that part is still working."

Clint almost smiles; now she is throwing his own black fears into his face. Dammit, she's good. But he's no slouch, either, even if he lacks her subtlety. As far as he is concerned, they have just reached the stage of the exercise where prodding becomes not only acceptable, but necessary.

"This isn't about me right now, Tasha. We did me, on the beach. It's your turn."

He takes a deep breath, leans back against his end of the couch and gives her a level look.

"You and I have just been through several days and various forms of hell. We agreed to come here to deal with it. I was there last night, so don't tell me there's nothing for you to work through. You were goddamn _shaking_, and it was all I could do to grab you and hold you down. And dammit, that was about the hardest thing I've had to do since this whole mess started, 'cause all _I _really wanted to do was run."

Clint is normally not a man of many words, and the length of his speech startles her as much as his admission.

"And then I spilled my guts to you out there on that beach, and that wasn't exactly fun either. So I think I'm entitled to some honesty in return. And the sooner, the better, I think. For both our sakes. Let's get this done."

She stiffens, and everything inside her screams at her to get indignant, to snarl at him, ask him what the hell he means and where the fuck does he get off? Normal leveling out is a few whispered words, a couple shots of vodka - not turning your insides out and screaming out a pain you didn't really want to know you felt ...

But he is sitting there beside her, as real as anything in her life. Battered and bruised and he should be dead from exhaustion – but he's still fighting. For what?

"Natasha."

It's a plea, an entreaty and absolution all at once, and she feels the shards starting to fall around her.

"Why did you say you were compromised? What's the red in that ledger of yours that Loki put there, that thing that made you want to go to war?"

She owes him an answer. When she finally gives it, her voice is tinged with fear, as she replays in her head the days that he was gone – when she saw his face on every monitor, every screen she passed on the carrier.

"You want to know what Loki did to me, Clint? _You. _That's what he did. He's the fucking God of Thieves and Lies, and he _took_ you, he turned you into a walking lie."

And then she says one more thing that he didn't expect, although he should have known because it is true for both of them.

"You're the black in my ledger, Clint. And Loki made you red."

…..

Over the years since they have done this, gone to ground after a particularly difficult mission, they've developed a bit of a routine. She has endured his stony silence for days, handed him arrow after arrow to drill into imaginary targets, or silently packed their bags when they got thrown out of a cheap hotel because he kicked the wall until it dented.

He's held her through nightmares and nights when sleep just wouldn't come, he's let her scream at him in all the languages she knows and allowed her to lay a drumbeat on his chest (and man, she can hit hard).

Time and again, they've done this, brought themselves back to a place where they can function in their jobs, do them efficiently and effectively. Maybe she's succeeded in salvaging some pieces of herself the Red Room didn't reach; and maybe he's managed to prove that the endless string of betrayals that was his life before S.H.I.E.L.D. did not define him. Whatever they have done and however they have done it, it has been enough.

In all those years that they've spent as partners, there are lines they've never crossed, not even after the carnage of Sao Paolo, or the unholy mess that was Abidjan. It's ironic that it would take gods and monsters and portals into other worlds to make you see what's right in front of you.

He brushes a strand of red hair out of her face, almost as if he needs to see her more clearly just then. She hesitates a fraction at the familiar gesture, her breath catching in sudden recognition.

_So that's what it means …_

And then it's really obvious what they need to do, and suddenly, there are no lines to be crossed anymore; there's only them, claiming back what was taken from them. There's nothing particularly gentle about it when he pulls her close, or when her hand reaches around to bend his head so she can crush her mouth to his.

It's a gift of sorts, this first kiss, and it's staking a claim - it is closure and affirmation and benediction all in one. There's a hunger and a need that are very, very mutual, and damn it, it's good and right and true and what have they been waiting for all these years?

She runs her hands first over his back, then under his shirt, up and across his abdomen, feeling that incongruously soft skin over hard, solid muscle. Now that she is where she is and he is there with her, she wants to be as close as possible – no more barriers. She hikes the shirt up and he takes the hint, removing it quickly and throwing it across the room before reaching for her again.

_No more lines._

He breathes her in and lowers his mouth to hers again, savoring the moment, the taste of her - here, solid, with him. A small, insistent voice in his head tries to tell him that this isn't happening, that this can't be happening, that Loki might make him strike at her from the recesses of his mind, and even if he doesn't, the last thing he needs right now is a pity fuck and all the complications that would bring.

But this is his partner, the woman he trusts with his life, who instead of killing him on that catwalk when she had the chance (and every right) cut him loose - just as he'd given her a chance and cut her loose, back then. Maybe that's their pattern, watch each other break and reassemble, and how is what they are doing now any different, really?

Natasha feels that moment of hesitation, the vibration in his touch, the small catch in his breath. But then it's over, and with an expert move on his part (one she barely feels and cannot but admire) her shirt is gone, followed by her brassiere; she sighs her desire and her relief in one and reaches for what she wants, for what she suddenly knows she needs.

His lips caress her breast and his tongue starts brushing her nipple, a little roughly, and she responds by running her fingers through his still-damp hair with one hand, raking her nails slightly over his back with the other. He shudders a little at a sensation that she knows to be poised between pleasure and pain - the window he went through left its marks, despite the leather - but it's the message he needs to receive, just as much as she needs to give it just then. He gasps his appreciation, and she smiles into his hair.

Their minds and their bodies are tools, finely honed instruments they inhabit and control with precision, and always to calculated effect. But maybe there are moments that aren't about control, when it's just about the feeling of skin on warm skin; lips running over callouses and spots that are surprisingly soft; tongues, dipping and tasting; small, involuntary sounds, gradually increasing as they become lost in each other.

In the end, it really is about trust and letting go, and when she finally opens to him and he enters, it's about pleasure and pain and completion and all that was taken restored.

_No more lies._

…..

Thanks to years of training and necessity, Clint can fit more rest and recuperation into a ten-minute catnap than most people can into a weeklong coma, so when he wakes up three hours later with his arm draped around Natasha's waist he feels like a million bucks. Okay, maybe a hundred grand, adjusted for inflation. (His back and head still hurt.)

He knows bloody well that what they've just gone through isn't the end of it. But it's a start. Natasha talks about 'ledgers' and 'debts'; when it comes to certain events in his life he tends to work more with concepts like 'guilt,' 'anger,' and 'regret,' and those can be pretty resilient, not so easily shelved. And Clint just knows that there are things in his memory – things he sees through a blue-tinged lens, but very clearly - that will haunt him for a long time, regardless of any explanations he or anyone could make on his behalf. But in the meantime, because he is a professional and the kind of man who gets on with whatever needs to be done, Clint will work on his powers of compartmentalization, and he has no doubt that Natasha, the trained expert, will be there to help.

As for their partnership, maybe the evolution it has just undergone had been inevitable; he'd like to think so, because otherwise he'd have to ask Thor next time he sees him to pass his little brother a thank-you note. Suffice it to say, his and Natasha's diligent professionalism had been a hard nut to crack, but here they are now, and nothing Clint has ever done has felt this right.

Natasha wakes to the sensation of his tongue tracing a line along her neck before she feels his lips on her ear, her name a breath in the air. She opens her eyes to his, and any residual doubts either of them might have harboured about their new partnership evaporate in the face of the enthusiasm with which they both embrace its operationalization.

Over dinner (he orders the lamb, pink, just to confuse her) they decide to stay on Long Island for as long as they can get away with. They know they both need the break, plus it'll piss off Fury who has it coming.

They spend the next few days sleeping, walking on the beach, hanging out in the jaccuzzi or getting massages, and entertaining each other with papers, blogs and magazine specials about "the battle for New York."

There are a few more nightmares on her part and he goes silent on her at odd moments, but whenever that happens the other is there and they get through it.

The _do-not-disturb_ sign dangles from their door a fair bit.

On Day Four, Clint actually tries the frittata at breakfast (he picks out the green peppers and fastidiously parks them on the side of his plate) and Natasha orders the _steak frites_ for dinner (she makes him finish her meat).

On the morning of Day Six, Fury calls Natasha's smartphone. Why, he doesn't really say. Maybe accounting has noticed the damage to the S.H.I.E.L.D. corporate AmEx card (the Inn has an extensive and exclusive wine list and the spa treatments add up), or maybe he just misses them, although that's unlikely. Perhaps he wants Clint to come and explain to internal security just how he almost brought the helicarrier down with a simple plan and a couple of well-placed arrows.

Most likely, though, the Director just remembered that two of the Avengers are actually on his payroll and therefore can be called in to save the world, make it a better place. Not all at once, of course - that requires the whole team - but incrementally, one target at a time.

They're still in bed when he calls; It's seven a.m., but he doesn't apologize. To save time and an inevitable second phone call, Natasha puts the boss on the speakerphone while Clint rolls his eyes at her. Of course Fury notices the change in the acoustics. He just asks, his tone a little pointed, "Barton there, too?"

"Yep," says Clint, and proceeds to do something with his left hand that forces Natasha to gasp a little. She frowns pointedly at the phone in her hand, but all she gets back is an insolent smirk.

Fury doesn't explain what he actually wants, but he also doesn't say the magic words, _I need you to come in. _So maybe all he wants is to check up on them, to see if they've killed each other yet working through the shit they've just been through. What he does say is, "You planning on coming back to work anytime?"

Clint takes it upon himself to respond, even though Natasha is the one Fury actually called.

"We were thinking of a week Thursday, sir."

Natasha suppresses a snort. Clint lowers his head and brushes her lips with the tip of his tongue, and applies a little more pressure with his fingers … _there_. Her eyes flash a heavy-lidded _bastard!_ at him, but he just grins again as she squirms under his touch. Good thing her phone isn't video enabled.

Maybe Fury knows something is up, or maybe he's just softened a little in the wake of recent events (doubtful). At the very least, his temporal vocabulary has expanded beyond the only word he used to know, which was "_Now!_"

"Monday, agents. I expect you to report back in on Monday."

"Tuesday. Around tea time," Clint responds. "There's a vacation entitlement in our contracts, sir. Look it up."

And just in case Fury wants to come back with a counter-offer or a veiled threat, he turns off the phone and removes the battery. Natasha swats both out of his hand and pulls him down on top of her with a growl, before flipping him on his back, straddling him and pinning both his wrists to the mattress.

"You'll pay for that, Barton," she growls in her best Black Widow voice, giving a squeeze with her lethal thighs just to reinforce the message.

"By all means," he says with a lazy grin.

…..

On the drive back they finally have the inevitable discussion about how their colleagues at S.H.I.E.L.D. will deal with what they have become, and whether it even matters? Most of the support staff (including Hill, who's a serious gossip) think they've been sleeping together for years anyway.

Fury, they figure, won't give a shit, as long as his assets stay sharp and fully deployable. Fraternization rules are for people who can't handle themselves, and they're not children. The Director may actually be pleased – think of the realism they can now inject into cover stories - not to mention he won't have to shell out for separate rooms anymore while they're on mission.

Coulson would have been happy for them, in his own quiet way. And so Clint floats the idea of coming out at Phil's memorial service: "Like, let's hold hands or something?"

To his surprise Natasha agrees, not because she thinks it's necessary but because, well … having two of the _Avengers_ be an item would have appealed to Phil's not-so-inner geek. It'd be like a gift.

As it turns out, though, the memorial service for Coulson never happens. Clint thinks it's because Fury is in denial, or else just because he's a ruthless and unsentimental prick (Hill told _everybody_ about that stunt with the Captain America cards, Clint heard about it in the med lab that first night).

Natasha, who knows something about deaths that aren't, theorizes that maybe Coulson has just gone to ground somewhere in a rehab facility, to recover from a major chest wound. And that he'll show up again at some point, to make snippy remarks about how they routinely leave stuff out of their mission reports and to kick up a fuss about his no longer mint-condition cards. Clint likes Natasha's idea a lot better than his, and decides to go with it – for now, anyway.

And so, basically, they just go on as they always have. They're partners, always have been (well, it seems like always). They share stakeouts, battle strategies, hideous food and worse accommodations; they train and throw each other around on the mat (okay, she mostly throws him, but he does hold his own); and they dress each other's wounds or curse Fury when things go pear shaped in the field.

Natasha accuses Clint of wallowing when she finds him pouring over the casualty lists again, but when she sees he's trying to compose a letter of condolence to the families she asks Pepper, who's good at comms, for a few discrete suggestions. For a while Clint finds excellent reasons for being in the same room with Natasha whenever Banner turns up on the carrier, but the good Doctor really is a big pussycat when he's not going green, and so after a while it just seems ridiculous and he stops.

She continues to snark at him when he drinks too much coffee or refuses to even _consider_ a vegetable that isn't an olive or a potato, while he gets cross when she won't see the medics even when she's bleeding profusely. She cuffs him in the arm when he makes smartass remarks in meetings just because "someone needed to cut through the bullshit," and he tells her to look at the Big Picture once in a while. "You know, the view from a thousand feet up." They practice the _t'ai chi_ for their groupies from accounting (who will stop bugging them about that AmEx bill); she whispers private jokes into his ear when he's being too intense and yes, he _does_ smile.

And no one notices a damn thing, because really, not that much has changed.

But there are two new truths in their own private canon: One, they will never use the names "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" for cover again; and Two, they will both remember Long Island pretty much exactly the same.


End file.
